Superman & Batman Should Have Been Marvel Heroes, But a Major Business Deal Changed History

Marvel and DC Comics are the two pillars of American superhero comics, to the point where they are frequently called “the Big Two.” As the two biggest competitors in the game, it’s rare to find both companies on the same page. Yet there was a time in the early 1980s when the unthinkable almost happened: Marvel Comics came very close to taking over DC’s publishing arm, which would have seen the House of Ideas producing comics for Batman, Superman and the Justice League.

Former Marvel Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter provided the details in a post on his website from 2011, where he describes a phone call he received one day in 1984. The call came from Bill Sarnoff, the Chairman of Warner Books. “Among the operations under his purview was DC Comics,” Shooter writes.“What he wanted to talk about was licensing the publishing rights for all DC characters to Marvel Comics.”

Shooter goes on to explain Warner Books’ interest in contracting Marvel to produce comics based on the DC characters, citing how Marvel consistently outperformed DC in comics sales at the time:

“Bill said, more or less, that Marvel seemed to be able to turn a substantial profit on publishing comics, as opposed to DC, which consistently lost money, a lot of money, and had for a long time.”

Marvel’s DC Comics: The House of Ideas Could Have Been the House of Superman

According to Shooter, Warner was stumped as to why its comics weren’t profitable when the characters themselves made millions from the company’s licensing deals. “LCA (Licensing Corporation of America), Warner’s licensing arm, did very well with the DC properties,” Shooter writes. He estimates that Warner was earning far more in licensing than Marvel was making from licensing its characters:

“
I guess the few million a year we made from licensing, mostly from Spider-Man, seemed paltry to
(Sarnoff)
, what with the fortune that just their big four, Superman, Batman, Robin and Wonder Woman, brought in.
”

Shooter says that Marvel’s then-President Jim Galton initially turned down Sarnoff’s idea, believing that if the DC characters weren’t selling, then “those characters must not be any good.” However, Shooter managed to convince Galton that Marvel could do better with them. Talks progressed far enough that Shooter put together a publishing plan for how Marvel would handle the proposed DC line. “The first part of the business plan was the publishing plan,” says Shooter. “I decided that we should launch with seven titles and build from there, if all went well.”

Why Marvel & DC’s Licensing Deal Fell Apart

The seven DC titles that Marvel would have started with were: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Teen Titans, Justice League, and the Legion of Super-Heroes. It’s wild to imagine what Marvel’s version of the DC heroes would have looked like, but one Marvel superstar turned future DC creator caught wind of the plan and almost got their dream project a few years early:

“
Somebody leaked. Rumors spread. My first clue was when
John Byrne
showed up in my office one day with his cover for
(Superman)
…He had a story worked out, too, as I recall. He reallyreallyreally wanted to do Superman.
”

According to Shooter, the proposal fell apart due to worries about violating antitrust laws, stemming from a lawsuit against Marvel by smaller indie publisher First Comics: “I think it’s safe to say that when you’re being sued under antitrust laws,” Shooter writes, “it’s a bad time to devour your largest competitor.” DC’s fortunes would turn around in the next few years, anyway, when titles like Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns would revolutionize the entire industry. Interestingly enough, Dark Knight Returns writer/artist Frank Miller first found success on Daredevil, so perhaps Jim Shooter wasn’t wrong when he proposed his plan for Marvel to publish a line of DC Comics.

Source: Jim Shooter